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Active Transportation Plan
IDOT's Active Transportation Plan creates a vision and identifies measures to improve walking and biking infrastructure throughout Illinois.
IDOT has worked with the general public and stakeholders to develop an Active Transportation Plan that sets a vision and identifies measures to improve walking and biking infrastructure throughout the state.
To understand technical practitioners and public feedback, the project included various community engagement activities to hear from residents with goal of understanding the current conditions of walking and biking in the state and identifying needs of Illinois residents. Check out options below to access the plan, public engagement findings, meeting recordings and project deliverables.
Prior to this plan, Illinois had the Illinois Bike Plan to address biking needs in Illinois. This plan was considered innovative at the time of development. If you would like to know more about this plan, view the Illinois Bike Transportation Plan page.
Transportation Should Work for Everyone
The Walk.Roll.Illinois Active Transportation Plan serves as a new strategic guide to support all road users in Illinois, including the most vulnerable – those who walk or roll to school, work and essential spaces.
Transportation is the second largest category of household expenditures in the U.S., primarily due to costs associated with owning and maintaining an automobile. Lower-income households make fewer trips than higher income households yet spend over twice as much of their income on transportation costs.
A modal shift to active transportation such as walking or biking provides affordable transportation options and allows individuals to thrive in their communities and neighborhoods. Society also benefits when travelers shift modes.
Scroll down to learn more about the Active Transportation Plan’s development, vision, goals and supporting analyses.
A highly anticipated companion resource to the Active Transportation Plan is the Local Implementation Guide. This guidebook serves as a resource for local partners working to enhance active transportation within their jurisdictions. It consists of eight sections to address common challenges and barriers while offering practical tips and resources to overcome them.
Walk.Roll.Illinois also features an assessment tool for communities and planners to calculate the economic benefits of active transportation. This economic benefits assessment quantifies, contextualizes and communicates the benefits and costs of active transportation investments in Illinois, emphasizing impacts to local governments. It is designed to provide defensible, evidence-based metrics that establish the value of maintaining and expanding active transportation networks. The tool helps demonstrate that active transportation is a critical and necessary component of the transportation system, not just a discretionary investment.
Check back for the launch of the Walk.Roll.Illinois Online Experience in July 2026. This interactive map overlays numerous active transportation data sets for planners and stakeholders to assess demand, equity, crash locations, bicycle facilities, trail suitability and more.
Transportation Should Work for Everyone
The Walk.Roll.Illinois Active Transportation Plan is a statewide effort to help communities create safer, more accessible ways for people to walk, bike or use a mobility device to the places they need to go.
Active transportation is more than sidewalks, trails and bike lanes. It's about connecting people to jobs, schools, parks, health care, businesses and everyday destinations. It's about creating communities where everyone — regardless of age, ability, income or how they travel — has safe and reliable transportation options.
The Walk.Roll.Illinois plan provides a roadmap for improving accessibility and gives communities the tools and resources they need to turn ideas into action.
Benefits
Vision
It is our vision to provide a safe, equitable multimodal active transportation network in Illinois that reflects our unique communities, improves access, increases active transportation, and advances livability and connectivity for everyone, particularly those who walk, bike or roll.
goals
- Equity: Ensure the network is accessible to users of all ages, abilities and backgrounds.
- Safety: Reduce bicyclist and pedestrian serious injuries and fatalities.
- Connectivity: Connect people to essential destinations like school, jobs, parks and more through comfortable and continuous bicycle and pedestrian facilities.
- Partnerships: Build new partnerships and strengthen existing relationships to advance walking and biking.
- Economic vitality: Support the creation of economically and culturally vibrant streetscapes that provide opportunities to engage with businesses and commerce and drive economic activity.
- Public health & environment: Promote active modes of travel that improve air quality and reduce chronic disease, fossil fuel dependence, greenhouse gas emissions and congestion.
- Livability: Support active living environments that provide affordable transportation options and allow people to thrive in their communities and neighborhoods.
You don't have to start from scratch. Walk.Roll.Illinois provides communities with data, tools, guidance and resources to help turn active transportation ideas into real projects.
Whether you're looking to improve safety, strengthen local connections, support economic development or quantify the benefits of active transportation in your community, IDOT is here to help. Explore planning tools, funding resources, maintenance considerations, public engagement guidance and the Local Implementation Guide to help turn ideas into action.
Local Implementation Guide (PDF)
- Quick-Start Guide: Getting Started in Your Community (PDF)
- Quick-Start Guide: Funding & Implementation (PDF)
- Quick-Start Guide: Public Involvment (PDF)
- Economic Impact Report (PDF) - COMING SOON!
- Economic Benefit Calculator Spreadsheet Tool (Excel) - COMING SOON!
Public Meeting in a Box
Understanding where and how residents walk and roll is key to informing investments in active transportation infrastructure. By analyzing where there is the greatest demand, inequities and health disparities, Walk.Roll.Illinois identifies locations and communities most in need of active transportation networks.
Transportation demand is the existing and potential demand for active transportation. This includes where people live and work and trip attractors, such as schools/retail. The demand analysis indentifies areas with high active transportation demand.
Districts 1, 2, 3 and 8 have the highest active transportation demand scores.
Chicago, Champaign, Peoria and Bloomington have the greatest transportation demand.
Transportation equity involves equal and just access to users regardless of where they live or their age, abilities or backgrounds. The transportation equity analysis identifies areas with a higher concentration of underserved communities.
Districts 1, 2, and 8 have the greatest concentration of underserved communities.
In total, 2.2 million people were identified as living within the highest equity need areas.
A community's environment holds a significant impact on health outcomes. Access to opportunities for physical activity through active transportation travel improves health outcomes. The health analysis identifies areas with poor health outcomes.
Districts 4, 6, 7 and 9 have the highest health need.
Hopkins Park, East St. Louis, Cairo, Pulaski and Mounds have the greatest health need.
Existing Conditions
You can also review district level existing conditions findings for state-maintained roads. These summaries overlay data from the analyses to identify areas with higher concentrations of vulnerable communities, high active transportation demand and limited access to physical activity through active transportation travel.
Memos
Existing Conditions memos provide detailed information regarding active transportation maintenance, design guidance, new mobility and funding at IDOT. You can read about this guidance in the plan, or select the images below to view the stand-alone memos.
Public Engagement Summary
IDOT-Administered Programs
Learn more about the work of the Interagency Council on Bikeways and find upcoming meeting information.
Apply for active transportation infrastructure funding and state match assistance through the Illinois Transportation Enhancement Program.
Learn more about behavioral traffic safety grants and safety campaigns administered through IDOT’s Bureau of Safety Programs and Engineering.
Read IDOT’s ADA Transition Plan for programs and facilities in the public right of way.
Download the Blue Ribbon Commission on Transportation Infrastructure’s final report of actionable recommendations.
Stakeholder & Advocacy Groups
- Active Transportation Alliance
- Rails to Trails
- Illinois Department of Public Health State Health Improvement Plan
- Illinois Department of Commerce & Economic Opportunity Rebuild Illinois Programs
- American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials Council on Active Transportation Research Roadmap
- Centers for Disease Control PLACES Health Data
- Illinois Network of Centers for Independent Living
- American Planning Association - Illinois Chapter
- Federal Highway Administration Metropolitan Planning Organization database